From these two sources, which are as it were the boundaries and norms for understanding all of Sacred Scripture correctly, all the remaining topics of theological doctrine arise and flow out: and to these two first heads of our catechism for youths, namely the Decalogue and the Creed, 1 all the discourses, dogmas, and historical narrations of Sacred Scripture can be traced back. But, nevertheless, so that a sequence and summary of our most fulsome doctrine, spread out over very many parts, may be clearer and may be able to be understood more easily and fixed in the mind by youths, we shall enumerate ten chief topics of Christian doctrine, to which students are able to refer all things that they read or hear in the Word of God, the fathers, and any other theological writings, discourses, readings, and disputations, and as it were to divide them into sure classes or members of one body fittingly joined together 2among themselves, and to grasp them with the mind. 3

Notes:

Note that Chytraeus identifies the “law” with the Ten Commandments and the “gospel” with the (presumably Apostles’) Creed. ↩